Tag Archives: math

We have been working on building up our number skills in math, with a focus on 2-digit numbers. We are practicing reading, writing, and showing numbers in a variety of ways. We have also been busy with skip counting, adding, and subtracting on the 100s charts. Ask your child about some of the “Math by Myself” and “Partner Math” games he or she has learned how to play, and check out this Animoto video to see what we’ve been up to:

Another great week in B 20! This week in our Hearing & Sound unit we found out ways to amplify sound and some methods of soundproofing. We discussed the importance of sound and explored ways we can communicate without the use of it. We also began planning our culminating project – the construction of a musical instrument! Your children have written letters to you detailing their plans and the materials they would like to gather from home over the weekend in order to make their projects in class next week. In math we continued our work with fractions, and we also reviewed the many ways to show a 3-digit number (pictures, numbers, words, blocks, pictures). We built upon our strategies for 2-digit addition to help us make the transition to adding 3-digit numbers. Very exciting was the introduction of our latest language arts theme, a nonfiction study of the Middle Ages. We are reading many books and sharing all of our background knowledge about medieval times to get us ready for our research reports and upcoming novel study.

This week in math we explored equal parts of a whole in our study of fractions. We reviewed graphing and creating line plots to show a collection of data, and we also practiced refining our strategies for adding 2-digit numbers. In science we learned about how the ear works, safe listening practices, and how we measure volume. We read a few more poems in our poetry mini-unit, and tried our hand at writing an original poem based on a model. As readers, we learned about the comprehension strategy of visualizing, or creating mental images while we read. We wrapped up the week with our final inline skate session with Mrs. McQuesten and our guest instructor.

Happy New Year! New year = new things to learn about! This week we began several new units of study including our second poetry mini-unit in language arts, a unit on fractions in math, and a science unit on “Hearing and Sound”. We also reviewed our anchor charts in Daily 5 literacy so that we could exercise our “muscle memories” and recall the correct ways to work independently in reading, writing, and word work activities. 14 new words were posted on the word wall over the break, and we practiced spelling them and relating them to many other words that use their spelling patterns. We were especially excited to welcome our inline skating instructor to our gym classes this week, and we look forward to having another skate time with Kenny next week. Thank you to all the families who came out to enjoy our “Family Inline Skate Night” on Friday!

Happy holidays! I hope that you are all enjoying your time at home with your family and friends. I am spending a quiet holiday season at home with my family, and catching up on some sleep (and movies)! Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts and cards your little ones brought in over the last week or two of school. Your thoughfulness is much appreciated. 🙂

Speaking of the last week of school, even though it was a short one, we still kept busy with some fun-filled activities. We concluded our author study of Jan Brett by reading her delightful Christmas stories and doing some special activities to coincide with them. We made a batch of gingerbread cookies, painted with watercolor paints and crayons, made clay models, and texture-painted gingerbread men. We wrapped up our social studies unit on traditions and quality of life in communities around the world, and we practiced our addition strategies in math.

Please check out our two new videos showcasing some of our December activities. Happy New Year!

What a busy week we had! We continued our study of author/illustrator Jan Brett’s work by looking at how she comes up with her story ideas. As writers, we learned that we can retell folktales and fairy tales, we can model a new story from one that another author has written, or we can carry on in a new book the story of a favourite character we previously wrote about. It is great to see the children realize that “real authors” go through the same stages of the writing process as we do here in our classroom. In math, we used our knowledge of estimating sums to help us add 2-digit numbers and rationalize whether or not our answer is reasonable based on our estimates. We are currently using a 100’s chart to add, but this leads into the mental addition outcome of our grade 3 curriculum. It’s amazing to see how quickly the students are able to make this shift into mental calculations! In social studies, we explored our traditions and celebrations as Canadian citizens, and compared them to those of the four focus children we are studying from communities around the world. Of course, one favourite JS McCormick tradition is our annual Christmas concert, and what a splendid job our grade 3 classes did this week at ours. I know that none of us will get “Nuttin’ for Christmas” because we have all been so very good this year! Three more days of fun and learning at school, and then it is time to enjoy some of our favourite family traditions at home during the holiday season.

It has been a few weeks since our last weekly update. Flu bugs (even for me) and portfolio preparations have taken up a bit of my blogging time, but we have continued to be very busy in our classroom! Following our November break we dug into our research on dinosaurs and wrote some fact-filled reports. Students used a variety of media and print sources for their research: online websites, nonfiction books, and our classroom bulletin board display. We then transitioned into our first novel study by reading the first two books in the Dinosaur Cove series and doing a novel study booklet for the second book. We tied this into our Daily 5 work on “schema”, which is accessing all of our background knowledge to make connections to new text. The next time you sit down to read a new book with your child, please ask what his or her schema is for the book. As writers, we have learned how to focus on one main idea and add supporting details, and we are now focusing on effectively organizing those ideas and details. In math, we have been building up our skills with number concepts through the use of base-ten blocks. We reviewed 2-digit numbers and we are now transferring that knowledge to 3-digit place value. We are also working on pre-algebra skills by finding the “mystery number” in a variety of equations, again with the use of manipulatives to help us visualize our thinking. We wrapped up our mapping unit in social studies (check out your child’s wonderful treasure map in the portfolio!), and we are now exploring the lives of four children from different communities around the world.

Thank you to all of the parents who came in to chat about your child’s progress and to celebrate their achievements in their portfolio. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of you in the week ahead.